On the Eleventh Day

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....family.

Now since Matt and I have gotten married he's had to get used to a few things. I take 45 minutes to get ready, I don't like wet socks, I don't like any light when I'm sleeping, and I have at least 3 Christmases each year. We have the Moser Christmas with my Dad's side, the Dagman Christmas with my Mom's side, the Moser Christmas with just my small family at the farm, and then we add the Remynse Christmas in and that's if we don't count the Christmas for just the two of us. It's one of my favorite things and as I get older I cling a bit more to it each year. I grew up in a large family in terms of aunts, uncles, and cousins. My father was 1 of 6 kids, my mother 1 of 5. Each family had at least 2 kids, some 3 and it appears that cousins came in waves. I remember piles of presents under the tree, a amazing chaos of unwrapping, with huge tables of food and people. I remember hot rooms and cramped spaces and silly spats between cousins. I remember dresses and tights and family pictures. I remember getting sick because of all the excitement and I remember oyster corn...so 99% of the memories are nostalgically wonderful. But the best part is that I see these people and my cousins' children and realize how wonderful all these Christmases are. I don't get to see all these people all the time but even touching base and seeing their faces reminds me that I come from something greater than me and a tree of wonderfulness.

We had Round 1 of Christmas yesterday with the Mosers. The wonderful part was that we hosted it at our house. What a great treat for us. We had never hosted a holiday before this year and we got the Remynse Thanksgiving and a Moser Christmas. Was nice to show off our home, with still a few boxes, but we hadn't had that opportunity in Dickinson. I really got the easy end of the deal. My mother carried the grunt of the food while I just had the decorated home. The cats weren't too sure of the crowd but they did come around a bit.
We have Round 2 on Christmas Eve.
Round 3 on Christmas Day.
Round 4 the weekend following Christmas.

ALR: Um, I'm not sure if we have enough forks.